


liability

by angelsprunch



Series: losers analysis [7]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Lots of Crying, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:50:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsprunch/pseuds/angelsprunch
Summary: everything hurts and beverly wonders if she'll ever feel okay.





	liability

**Author's Note:**

> i apparently can only write when i’m projecting my trauma onto beverly marsh. anyway !! i hope you enjoy this and there isn’t really any ship for this but trigger warning for abuse and rape

She could still feel his hands on her skin and it made her want to scrub her skin until it bled. Most nights she did. When Beverly Marsh closed her eyes, she saw the faces of those that hurt her flash before her eyes. She was scared to be alone, but she didn’t trust anyone’s company. She ended up in this vicious cycle of seeking comfort in the wrong arms and ending up more hurt. At parties men would come up to her and she’d fall for their sweet talking, stumbling behind as they pulled her to a bedroom. She’d let them remove her clothes and she’d pretend this wasn’t real as they fell onto the bed. If it wasn’t real she could do this and she couldn’t not do this. Beverly only felt like she was worth something when she was lying next to someone.

 

When she kissed Bill Denbrough people started to wonder what else the two would do. Beverly would spin tales to different people as they listened, pretending not to notice when her lies got spread around the school. Bill remained quiet and started to avoid Beverly as the rumors grew without her. She never told anyone about how she cried the first time his gentle hands touched her or how he had stopped still in his tracks at her whimpers. They never went far after that because he was so scared of breaking her. He didn’t know that she was already broken. Eventually they stopped gravitating towards each other.

 

Beverly was drawn to Richie Tozier like nothing before. They had so much in common it only made sense for them to be best friends. She would crawl through his window late at night with bruises blossoming on her skin and rips in her blouse. He had clothes laid aside for her every night so she didn’t wake him to find something for her. He woke up anyway, though. She’d change by the moonlight and he’d grab a lighter so that they could chainsmoke until the sun came up. She’d cry into his arms and leave love bites on his neck. He’d play with her hair and some nights he’d help her out of her ripped clothes. 

 

One day Beverly was studying at the library and Mike set book beside her notebook. A confused look crossed her face and she saw that it was a book about Japanese art. “Look at page 47.” he had said before walking away to shelf some more books. She finished her assignment and flipped to the page he told her to. Beverly spent the rest of the night sitting in the library and reading about kintsugi. She learned that there was an art in Japan with repairing broken pottery with gold. She also learned that some people would break things on purpose just so they could fix it up with gold. As she walked home she inspected the scars littering her skin and wondered what they’d look like with gold sealing them shut.

 

Another day she came to school with her eye swollen shut and in a sweater hanging off her shoulders. The clothes were too large for her and not appropriate for the rising heat in Derry. When people asked if she was hot, she would brush them off. Beverly got kicked out of all her classes that day for calling out the teachers when they ignored obvious problems in their classroom. She ended up getting detention, but she skipped it in favor of smoking under the bleachers. While she lit her fourth cigarette tears burned their way down her cheeks and Stanley Uris approached her. He sat with her despite how much he hated the scent of tobacco and he told her about the phoenix. He told her about how it rose from ashes and was born again. Beverly wondered if she’d ever rise from this.

 

Her mother’s cries rang through her ears every night and no matter how hard she tried or how fucked up she got, Beverly could always feel her father’s hands on her skin. It didn’t matter who she was with, their voice always turned into her father’s. She pushed through, though, because Beverly Marsh refused to be seen as weak. Beverly stopped coming to school and her friends started to worry. They tried to check on her, but they couldn’t go to her house without making things worse with her father. Instead they found Beverly getting high in the quarry. It was getting warmer but the water was still ice cold from the winter that just passed, but she jumped in as her friends approached. The water easily soaked through her clothes and the freezing sensation was the first time she felt alive in years. Maybe she’d only feel real if she was on the edge.

 

On the last day of school Beverly’s father twisted her arms so far behind her back that her shoulder popped out of her socket. She wasn’t there to walk through the halls with her friends on their last day and she didn’t attend her graduation because of how bruised her face was. Instead, she got drunk in the park and waited for her friends to come find her. Beverly couldn’t count on much these days, but she knew her friends would always come to her. They patched up her bruises and lent her their clothes. They promised everything would be okay and they were the only boys she ever trusted. Maybe the only people she’d ever trust. This time no one came and she walked home on unsteady feet. She tucked herself into bed that night.

 

On the last night that the losers were together, Eddie gave Beverly a first aid kit and a thin lipped smile. As much as Beverly hated the thought of using it, she knew it would come in handy. Eddie had taught her how to treat a sprained wrist and how to butterfly a cut. He had kept her out of the hospital more times than she could count, but sometimes Beverly wondered what would have happened if she ever went to the hospital. Her family wouldn’t be able to afford it, first of all. Part of her hoped that the hospital would see what all of this came from, though. Maybe it would save her. She was too scared of what would happen next, though, if she reported her father for what happened to her.

 

In college she disconnected even more from reality. If she wasn’t fucked up on something, Beverly was sleeping off her high. There were three unplanned pregnancies that ended in abortions that she couldn’t afford. Beverly stopped attending her classes and used some of her loan money to pay for the abortions. Eventually she got kicked out of college when she got caught for sleeping with one of her professors. All it did was make her wonder if she’d ever escape this. When was it her turn to rise from the ashes? Beverly wondered if she was too broken to be put back together with gold. Without college, she ended up in too much debt to make it through.

 

Her savior came with bruised knuckles and a temper that Beverly was drawn to. He helped her pay off her debts and he kept a roof over her head. Beverly didn’t love Tom Rogan, but she felt like she needed him. He didn’t let her smoke and she told herself that it was because he cared about her and not because he felt the need to control her life. When he hit her, she told herself it was out of love. She made excuses for him because she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay otherwise. She couldn’t survive on her own, though. Even when she made a name for herself and when she was paying her own bills, Beverly still made excuses for him. Now she was just scared to face the world alone. He hurt her, but maybe that was all Beverly knew. She couldn’t remember anyone ever treating her with a gentle touch. Beverly wondered if she even deserved to be handled with care.

 

When Tom Rogan died a weight was lifted from Beverly’s shoulders. She was starting to remember the people who treated her right before he died and now that he was gone, she was realizing that she might deserve better than this. Beverly started smoking again because she was in control of her life and she had never felt so empowered with a cigarette hanging from her lips. He wasn’t with her anymore, but Beverly wondered if this was what Stan meant about rising from the ashes. 

 

After they left the sewers, there was no one there to patch up their wounds. Eddie had died and they left him there along with all of his knowledge about being hurt. She tried to follow the instructions echoing in her head as she remembered the small boy patching up her own wounds. It wasn’t the same, though, and the way the others watched was enough to let her know she shouldn’t be doing this. 

 

On their last day together, Beverly asked Mike why he showed her kintsugi. She needed to know if he saw something worth saving in her, she needed to know if he thought she was beautiful despite the pain. He told her that there was hope for everyone and that she didn’t need the gold to pull herself together. Mike knew that she would overcome it all eventually. She asked if he thought she’d ever be put back together with gold anyway and he told her that she’d be the one putting the gold on her jagged edges. 

 

Beverly held spoke to Bill, too, and she got to meet his wife. Something about her felt familiar to Beverly, but she couldn’t place her finger on it. She wondered if Bill remembered the way she cried the first time he saw her naked and she asked him when his wife wasn’t there. One thing lead to another and he saw her naked again. There were more scars on her skin from the last time, but this time it wasn’t Beverly who cried. Bill wept when he saw how hurt she had gotten over the years. His fingers brushed track marks from her college years and he asked her why. All she did was kiss him, though, and he didn’t ask anymore questions that night.

 

She held hands with Richie and they smoked more cigarettes after their final lunch together. The two wondered if it was lung cancer that would finally take them, but it didn’t stop them from lighting another cigarette. Beverly wondered if Richie remembered the nights that they spent together, but she didn’t ask. There was clearly too much on his mind with the deaths of Stan and Eddie. Instead, he asked her if she remembered their nights. She exhaled smoke and nodded. He told her that he only felt like he mattered when they were together and she explained that she felt the same. They never asked why nothing more came of it, they both knew the answer.

 

Ben Hanscom had been in love with her for longer than she even knew he existed. Beverly always felt like she should love him back, it made sense to love Ben. He was smart and sweet. She knew he would never hurt her and he’d support her through recovery. Still, nothing ever seemed to feel right with Ben. That didn’t stop her from going home with him after the events in Derry. Everyone seemed to go home, but Beverly and Ben went to Nebraska. They started their life new and Ben seemed so happy that Beverly ignored how wrong it felt when they lied together. 

 

Maybe nothing would ever feel right for Beverly, but at least this boy didn’t hit her.


End file.
